Dear members
With weather conditions warming up grass growth has taken off and the busy season is now underway.
With such dry weather the past seven to eight weeks the course conditions are in excellent shape with preferred lies now removed and to give that a little more perspective is was early December of last year when preferred lies was lifted from the local rules board.
GREENS
The greens have been receiving alot of attention this past month as we do our best to get them in prime health to take on the warmer summer weather.
Two light top dressings, three verti cuts and air injection into the soil of all greens were cultural practices that took place through the month of October. All of this has lead to a very healthy plant and I’m very pleased with where we currently have the greens from a playability standpoint. The next cultural practice likely to take place will be a verti drain with small 8mm tines in mid November.
FAIRWAYS/TEES/SURROUNDS
The Santa Annua surfaces have finally come out of winter dormancy and it’s now full steam ahead regarding their maintenance. We applied an insecticide, fertiliser and growth regulator on all of these surfaces in Mid October and like every year before these surfaces are starting to play and look fantastic. We now just need a little more warmth in the soil to get the couch grass density to where we would like it.
We also verti drained a number of tees and surrounds with large 19mm tines in areas that receive high traffic and/or are prone to stress from grass type, tree and/or shade issues.. this will assist in relieving soil compaction to help roots grow and water infiltrate more easily.
We will look to spray for broadleaf weeds on these surfaces in the coming weeks while also applying a further insecticide to alleviate the mites that do a mountain of damage through the summer months.
The 17th tee has forever struggled through the summer months due to two large nearby trees and their roots growing under the surface. This is magnified by having an undesirable grass type on the tee (cool season grass) and these two factors combined make for poor grass growing conditions. We are set to convert this tee to Santa annua in the coming weeks which will help it survive the summer months more easily while also being a more superior grass type for golf course play. This work will be undertaken in two stages with the back section being turfed first and then once that turf is established we will turf the front half… Doing it this way will see less disruption to golf with the ability to keep using this tee at all times through the process.
17TH GREEN REDEVELOPMENT
All things have been ticked off for this project and the new 17th green is now officially approved to go ahead! Construction works will begin in the week of January 13th 2025 and this is expected to take approximately 4-5 weeks to complete.
The more time consuming process is then waiting for the turf to be established and strong enough to withstand the constant traffic of golfers and machinery on a daily basis. How long this takes is largely impacted by weather conditions and seeing that this is out of our control there won’t be an official opening date until much further into the process.
I’ve been asked by a few members on why/how this green was chosen which I discussed in a previous report. To reiterate the main factors were its age (over 50 years old) which lead to it being very prone to disease and dry patch issues. The other was the excessive slope of the green which often forced the course staff to manage this green differently to the others. Not only is the front third of the green unusable for pin positions leaving little variety but we are often forced to not cut and/or roll this green to ensure the ball will stay on it.
All of these reasons made it an obvious choice and the we are set to get a much more improved green complex for us to play on.
We will have the greens design and 3D images for all to see on the notice board in the clubhouse soon.
Hope you’re all getting out and enjoying a game of golf over the November period
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